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Embarrassing Expenses 18th May 2009
Members of Parliament ask "doesn't everyone have a moat?"
We've learnt more about MPs' moats, duck islands and their mortgage mix-ups than we can take on board in recent weeks. The MPs' expenses scandal revealed in 'The Telegraph' has seen reader numbers increase ten fold as the paper cleverly kept up the suspense - revealing one scandal a day for a whole week.

In a clear admission of guilt, some MPs offered to give the money back while others tried to justify their shady claims. The really bad ones (see moats, manure and swimming pool cleaning claims) really had no option but to slink away, shamefaced. Reverberations have seen calls for serious constitutional reform and heads are still continuing to roll. In the Conservative party, David Cameron has put guilty members of his party out to dry which, he's quick to point out, only highlights Labour's lack of action.

Even the existence of a 'second homes' allowance is news to me - I was clueless that us tax-payers were paying for MPs to lunch and (lavishly) furnish their second abode. And, on the whole, spending more than the average person to do so - nothing but John Lewis will do, it seems (well, they are 'never knowingly undersold').

London MPs' second homes were particularly problematic. Living close to Westminster, many of the capital's MPs can, arguably, commute from their first home and save tax-payers a ton of money. However, with the lines drawn as they currently are, many of those claiming second homes are perfectly within the rules, highlighting a system that can be 'played' or maximised by MPs with less than scrupulous morals.

Take health minister Ann Keen and her husband Alan, MP for Feltham and Heston - nicknamed Mr and Mrs Expenses. They maxed out the allowances available, buying an apartment on the South Bank while their primary residence lies a mere 30 minutes away by car in Brentford, West London. The Mail worked out that even if they had each separately taken a taxi ride (costing £38) from Westminster to Brentford on every Commons 'sitting day' last year, the bill would have only come to £11,000. This may sound like a lot in cab fares. But not when you consider that this would have saved £27,000 compared to what they claimed in living expenses that year.

Keith Vaz, a former minister who now chairs the home affairs select committee, is another culprit. He reportedly claimed £75,000 for a Westminster flat even though his family's home is just 12 miles away in Stanmore. His defence? It's all permissible within the rules.

Nepotism, too, came under the spotlight as it emerged that a surprising number of MPs - around 200 - employ members of their family to do their menial work at our expense. Sir George Young, MP for North West Hampshire, for example, employs his daughter Camilla is his office manager. And who could forget Derek Conway who was exposed for paying his son Henry to work for him - while he was miles away at university. Henry Conway seems to have done rather well out of this particular scandal - establishing himself as something of a posh boy-party organiser around town.

Others, by contrast, came away looking (or sounding?) squeaky clean - these are the ones who choose not to take the mickey out of a system with so many holes it could be Swiss cheese. David Burrowes, the Conservative MP for Enfield, Southgate, is one example. Being an outer London MP he could claim for second home allowance, but opted not to. "It can’t be justified as a reasonable tax-payers' expense," he reasoned, adding, "and I prefer to go home to my family." Awww.

But the most excruciating performance arising from the expenses debacle came from the Speaker, Michael Martin - no stranger to expenses controversy himself - who stuttered his way through an agonising speech in the Commons. His far more succinct 30-second resignation speech followed soon after.

We're still waiting for the next instalment - what will the next day's newspaper announcements bring? Will Esther Rantzen take over as Speaker; or will Gordon be forced to call an early election? One thing's for certain, we can look forward to radical reforms of the inexcusably easy-to-exploit expenses system.
Taste of London
A greasy spoon is west London is an unlikely addition to the capital's tourist attractions. The Bridge Café stars in 'The Apprentice' as the place where "Britain's best business prospects" (apparently) go for a taste of reality. The message is that if they become the next in line to hear the words "You're Fired!" they could be swapping power lunches with Sir Alan Sugar for bacon butties in Acton! We know where we'd rather be – put the kettle on boys!
Pink and the Mob
Word was out at LondonTown.com Towers that the latest 'flash mob' event (it loses a bit of street cred when it's filmed for a certain mobile phone company advert) was taking place in Trafalgar Square and we deserted our desks in favour of karaoke with a 13,000-strong crowd. Renditions of 'Hey Jude', 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' and 'Summer Nights' filled the air but the element of surprise was US star Pink popping up to do a turn.
Curtain Up and Camera Rolling
It was only a matter of time before the light bulb switched itself on in the minds of telly producers and they realised that reality television had never really gone (literally) backstage at a London theatre. The Royal Ballet famously let the cameras go behind the scenes and many a musical star has been thrown into the spotlight of a West End show in the name of television, but the Theatre Royal Haymarket is the latest subject of fly-on-the-wall documentary. Apparently the show will be focusing on "the fabric and management of the theatre" but we bet they're really hoping to find some skeletons in the props cupboard!
2009
2008
23rd December
January is on the Horizon
20th December
Merry Christmas
26th November
All The World's A Stage
20th November
Surviving the Crunch
24th October
Boris v Jingjing
17th October
Soaps in Pole Position
23rd September
Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea
16th September
The London Restaurant Awards
26th August
No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues
20th August
The Olympics
24th July
Sandwiched Out
17th July
The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3
26th June
Love All at Wimbledon
16th June
Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant
27th May
Booze Banned on Buses
20th May
Same Again?
23rd April
By George
11th April
Back to the 80s
28th March
How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea?
20th March
Flight Fantastic
20th February
Dark, Satanic Turnmills
6th February
A Diamond in the Drink
21st January
People Wanted for Plinth
14th January
Boo! Hiss!
2007
28th December
Tate That - A Hirst for Art
20th December
Christmas Shopping
27th November
Mind the Gap
26th November
London On A Tray
26th October
Leaving the Station
14th October
The Sky's the Limit
26th September
The Play Within A Play
19th September
Fashion, Frocks and Celeb Shocks
12th September
Saying Tanks for the Mammaries
24th August
Heathrow under Siege
17th August
Gormless
10th August
Losing Face
24th July
Are We Reaching Boiling Point Yet This Summer?
13th July
Red Ken versus Blonde Boris
22nd June
Last Orders at the Fag Machine
11th June
London the Musical
21st May
What Lurks Beneath
10th May
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
27th April
London’s Walk on the Wild Side
20th April
Stand Behind the Yellow Line
13th April
Like Water for Chocolate
23rd March
So, Another Magazine
16th March
Avoiding iContact
23rd February
Sex and Art...
16th February
C-Charge Protest Fails to Bring Down Government
9th February
Live Earth London
26th January
A Vote for Shilpa is a Vote for Britain
18th January
Carriage on up the West End
2006
29th December
Food for Thought
22nd December
A Poisonous Marketing Campaign
15th December
In for a Penny, In for Five Pounds
17th November
Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold
10th November
Failing to Save the World
27th October
Frozen Prawns and Melting Icecaps
20th October
Predatory Pelicans and Happy Woodland Folk
13th October
Hope at last for east end of Oxford Street
16th September
Lite the Blue Paper and Stand Well Back
9th September
Of Poles and Twiglets
25th August
Free Fares For the Fat and the Fashionable
11th August
London Friendly
4th August
Archway To Organic Heaven
21st July
London - Celebrity Frat House
7th July
Out of the Galleries into the Streets
23rd June
Mayors, Nightmares and Marias
16th June
Downright Rude in Paris and London
9th June
Enter the Inferno
26th May
Curvaceous Border
12th May
Vegging Out
21st April
The Camden Crawl
17th April
Down the Pan
13th April
I Want to Break Free
9th April
Big Brother seems to have been left in a bar somewhere
7th April
Don't Box Me In
24th March
Political Correctness Reaches New Heights
24th February
A Stadium's Tale: Cup Final Goes West
17th February
Modern Musicals are Rubbish
10th February
The City-Side Alliance
20th January
February Sales
20th January
Moby Sick
13th January
Glass Half Full
3rd January
Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers
2005
22nd December
January Bites
16th December
A Remarkable Year
25th November
And a Partridge in a JCB
11th November
Driving Miss Sadie
4th November
Spam, Spam, Spammity-Spam, Shakespeare, Zorro, Chico and Rasputin
28th October
Trick or Treat?
21st October
We Don't Mind a Little Delay...
14th October
Final Resting Place for Young British Artists
16th September
Just a small urn for me, please barman
9th September
DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!
2nd September
The Free Tenor
30th August
Samba Rhythms Breaking Out All Over The Stadium
20th August
Getting Behind the Iron Farce
10th August
Mystery Play is No Sell Out
29th July
Moving On From 7/7
22nd July
Get loaded in the park
15th July
Victoire!!
24th June
New Balls, Please
17th June
The End of an Unsightly Era
10th June
The Hooded Law
31st May
Widespread Diso-’Beeb’-ience
20th May
Pass the Pepper Spray
20th May
Black Theatre Breakthrough
27th April
Five More Years
20th April
Dancing with Idiots
12th April
A Youthful Look at the Theatre
30th March
Musical Communion
23rd March
Big Guns Back in Town
10th March
Celebs in the City
28th February
There's no business like showbusiness!
22nd February
Ken You Believe It?
10th February
Make Poverty History
28th January
Loving It!
21st January
The Great West End Ticketing Scandal
14th January
The Triumph of the Ordinary
2004
30th December
Party Pooper
23rd December
The Second Battle of Trafalgar
16th December
Sadie's Year
28th November
Ripper-Watch
21st November
Kinky Boots
14th November
Smoked out
22nd October
Yuppie Meal
15th October
Fines of Fury
8th October
No Twist in the Turner
17th September
Battleships, bloodsports and Batman
10th September
Clique Week
3rd September
Return of the Bard
20th August
Politics Takes Centre Stage
13th August
Crisis in Theatreland
6th August
Journey's End
23rd July
Healing Waters
16th July
Mandela Statue in Doubt
9th July
From Art to Ashes
2nd July
One Hurdle Nearer to Gold
 
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